mr72's '92 project - "Renegade"

[mr72]

I have been working on a lot of things besides the ol' GS over the past few months and riding the GS a lot instead of wrenching.

The good news is: the bike is turning out to be quite reliable and very usable. I'm more than happy with it.

When it gets too hot to ride in a few months I'll probably embark on some projects again. I have a moderate to severe oil leak (liquid oil on my right shoe after riding) that needs a quick remedy. I am almost positive it's due to the broken crankcase bolt, so that's going to be a chore to fix. I replaced the handlebar with an aluminum KX-HI bend bar that I like a lot, and I put Oury grips on it. Good times all around.

I also want to redo the seat somehow, either by replacing it with an alternate, fabbing up my own seat, or doing serious surgery to the stock seat. The problem is the nose of the seat is too low so I wind up sliding forward constantly. I actually want a taller seat height anyway so I need to do something to make the seat itself more level by raising the nose of it somehow and since I likely will never ride 2-up on this bike I may sacrifice the pillion in favor of a more stable platform for my tail bag. It looks like a custom seat is the best choice.

While hacking on the seat I may also try to do something whereby I can get away without the tail and side plastics. I want to flip the rear fender so it's a more curved/old-school fender and mount the tail light (or a tail light) directly on the fender, re-mount the license plate somewhere else, etc. Kind of going for more of the look and feel like a Scrambler Classic for the seat/fender/taillights/license plate:



This will require me to fab up something to cover the sides where the reg/rect is along with the ingiter and starter relay, side of the airbox etc.

[mr72]

Dunno what happened with the picture in the last post.

But anyway, the ol' GS is coming under the knife again. I have racked up about 1500 miles on it now and have learned a lot of things.

- The Kat600 rear shock raises the rear of the bike too much. This screws the geometry and makes it less than comfortable. I think this is even the main cause of me sliding forward on the seat. I think I will switch back to the OEM shock and see if that helps or not. It's a drag because I really like the performance of that shock. It just needs to be a little bit shorter. Or I need lowering links.

- I had to replace the front tire, wound up with a Pirelli Sport Demon. Day and night difference. Way better than the Shinko 740 that was on there. And a lot less worn out.

- I am finding I really don't like the tail bag that much. It has upsides and downsides. I think I'd far rather have the ability to use a side case or even fab up some kind of top case. I may try to get the rack that the PO made work as a base for mounting side cases/panniers.

- The oil leaks are too much for me to handle any more. I have Saturday to myself this weekend so I'm going to dive in and try to extract that broken bolt on the side cover and see about getting it in a non-leaking state. Hopefully the gasket will come loose without scraping since it's almost new, only been about 1200 miles or so since it was installed. It's also leaking like a sieve from the valve cover, so I will reseal that guy in hopes it goes away.

- Also this weekend I may try to remedy that seat, which is just not comfortable for >1 hr. I may just pull the cover and foam off and craft a new foam pad from some closed-cell foam and a dremel drum sander and make a new cover from some marine vinyl I have onhand. Truth is I think if I can get the ride height back to normal the stock seat might be OK.

[ShowBizWolf]

Sounds awesome mr72!! Lowering links are pretty inexpensive if you find that's the route you want to go. And +1 for new tires making a nice difference!!!

Looking forward to seeing what ya do

[cbrfxr67]

Can you try that pic again?  I'd really like to see it!  Thanks!

[mr72]

Lowering links are pretty inexpensive if you find that's the route you want to go.

Yeah, and I think it is. There is even a company that makes them right here in Central TX, and they are cheap.

I really should order some. Probably will once I get the oil leaks sorted this weekend.

[mr72]

Ok.

The good news:.seat comfort improved, oil leak fixed. Broken bolt fixed. Bike's in great shape and all is well.

The story: today I decided to sort out my oil leak and not a moment too soon. Some oil was on the top of the cylinders and it was leaking around the bottom of the crankcase on both sides making the pegs slick and my shoes a mess. When I tried to fix this before I thought the leak was the clutch cover, so I pulled it and replaced the gasket. That's when I snapped a bolt so I assumed, likely incorrectly, that the broken bolt was causing at least part of the oil leak. I also guessed, definitely incorrectly, that the top end leak was due to a bar or leaking valve cover gasket. So I tore it down this morning to fix it.

First project was pulling the clutch cover to extract the broken bolt. Miraculously, it came right out easily. A little nib of bolt about 1/8" long was left and vise grips pulled it right out. Wasn't even tight. So that was an easy fix. I had scheduled my entire Saturday to get this done and it took less than half an hour including draining the oil and pulling the cover.

Next was the valve cover gasket. I pulled the tank and immediately found the problem. The mechanic who did my top end rebuild didn't bother to put the bolts back in on the timing chain cover. I mean the bolts were there but not even finger tight. I didn't even bother checking the valve cover gasket. Just torqued the timing chain cover and then cleaned everything really well and put it back together.

Since that work went so smoothly I moved to the shock. Plan was to try to put the original spring on the kat600 shock. I pulled the shock off and discovered the preload was on 7. I backed it to 1 and put it back on.

Next was the seat. I added some closed cell foam to the nose of the seat and fastened the cover back. Looks bad but it feels great. I think my next move here is going to be re-covering the seat with these modifications do I can get a cover that fits correctly, and I'll probably add a thin layer of closed-cell foam and some poly batting to smooth things out when I do that. I have plenty of vinyl to use to re-cover the seat. I might even try my hand at sewing to make it look a bit more "pro".

Did a grocery trip and no leaks. Seat way more comfortable. Bike rides way better. A lot of win today.

EDIT:

After letting it sit overnight I had a dime-size drop of oil on the garage floor. I am pretty sure the leak is coming from the crank seal that is underneath the signal generator. I think I can live with this until the next oil change, then I'll fix it.

I rode out this morning to get donuts for the fam and noticed that the rear end of the bike still sits a hair too high for my tastes. I think I'll take the plunge on a pair of adjustable lowering links and see if I can knock it down an inch (back to stock, basically). But it's so much better than before now. I only slide forward on the seat when braking. Once I'm cruising everything is great. Just a little more and it will be pretty much perfect.

Oh, and I did modify my rack (the crummy one the PO made) so it doesn't obstruct the brake light and put it on the bike. I hooked my tail bag onto the rack. I kind of like it there, way better than trying to strap it to the seat. Now this has me thinking I should build up another rack not unlike this one but made better and about 4" more forward, then consider putting a top case on. Basically I've gotten hooked on being able to get items from A->B on the bike with the tail bag, wouldn't mind something a little more secure, water resistant (just in case) and a little bigger. I need to carry things ranging from laptop size to take-out food for two. Anyway, I have a couple of sets of crutches laying around the garage that I can cut up and make into a pretty decent rack, using the existing one as a rough template. If I go that route I'll be sure and detail it here.

[Suzi Q]

I have the kat750 shock and it was wicked low with lowering links. I put it back to stock height and it much more comfortable for me. There is a measurement in my thread showing stock height with the 750.

[mr72]

Since the katana shock has a spring rate that's about 30% higher than the stock GS shock, it sags less when loaded. So I think it still rides a bit higher. A also suspect the 'F' seat is quite different.

I cut the coils in my fork in hopes of getting it to match the spring rate of the kat shock but maybe I should just get some stiffer fork springs or put a longer spacer in to preload the fork a little more. Wish it was like a mountain bike with air springs front and rear and an adjustable seat. It would be nice to be able to tune suspension without affecting seat angle. Wonder why they don't put air shocks on more motorcycles. I guess maybe they figure most owners are not going to want to keep an eye on the air pressure and keep them pumped up? Or maybe they figure if they let the owners control this, perhaps they wind up putting way too little or too much air and have a serious safety problem? Anyway, it would be cool if there was at least an aftermarket option.

Right now my options as I see it are:

1. rework my seat myself to be just right
2. take it to a local motorcycle seat guy who's advertising on CL in my area to have them rework/recover it for me.
3. try some lowering links
4. get some stiffer fork springs
5. combination of above

I am guessing I'll try either 1 or 2 (maybe 1, then 2), and eventually 4.

[Suzi Q]

If you DO decide to replace up front, I can't say enough good things about the positive experience I had with Rich and Sonic Springs.

[mr72]

If you DO decide to replace up front, I can't say enough good things about the positive experience I had with Rich and Sonic Springs.

Thanks for that. I think that's probably my next move.

Yesterday, I cracked open the seat to modify it some more. This time I decided to completely re-cover the seat since it had a couple of small tears along the edges and also I thin the sliding on it was largely due to its' being buffed smooth due to age.

I removed my previous mods and added foam UNDER the main foam at the nose of the seat to "level" the front portion of the seat. I kept cutting pieces and cramming them under there, then putting the seat back and testing until I found the best I could do that would still fit under a cover. Then I re-covered the seat with some vinyl upholstery I had laying around. Looks pretty good. Still no rides on the improved seat but in the garage it feels much better. Maybe this will get the job done.

I still think I'll need to replace the coils in the fork for something even stiffer than the cut-down stockers. According to this thread the Kat600 spring is about 23% stiffer than the stock spring. In order to get the fork spring rate to approximately match that of the rear with the Katana shock, I cut about 20% off, which being linear, should result in about a 25% increase in front spring rate. I made this choice based on two assumptions, one definitely incorrect and one questionable. Questionable is the assumption that Suzuki tuned the f/r spring rates for some kind of ideal balance under some set of circumstances, such as rider weight and rear spring preload. The incorrect assumption is that a linear increase in both front and rear by the same amount will maintain this theoretical balance. It's far more likely that Suzuki sort of parts-binned this together and it's not really close to ideal even for a certain rider weight, and it's a definite that given I am likely larger than the rider it was designed for. The weight balance is not 50/50, so an increase in rear spring rate by 23% should match with a fork spring rate increase of less than 23%. Maybe 20%? 18%? But it's not like I can make such precision "adjustments" by cutting and grinding.

Now, my seat of the pants feel tells me that the Katana 600 spring is more than 23% stiffer than the stock spring, but who knows for sure (I could measure, but I don't want to remove it again...). And also the bike feels like the front springs were on the soft side of ideal when matched with the original rear shock, most likely because rider comfort is much more evident at the hands so if Suzuki wanted to sell bikes, making a more plush front end would make it feel more comfortable on a test-ride. Sonic Springs calculator says I need 0.80kg/mm front springs which are about 35% stiffer than stock, which meshes with my theory. So I'll likely just pony up for a set of front springs and get the geometry right on the front end of the bike. I can't really cut the stock springs any more without reducing travel.

The bike is continually nickel and diming me. Or maybe it's just that I can't help but to tinker with it.

I also noticed yesterday that the valve cover area and top of the jug on the left side is wet with oil. That means the valve cover likely IS leaking. I'm going to order a new gasket. It's not hard to replace but I despise taking the %&@#*%! tank off. I suppose I should do it right and also order new fuel hoses since this is my main gripe about removing the tank, those old hoses are not very pliable so getting them on and off is a collossal PITA. Well that looks like another few hours on a Saturday of wrenching rather than riding.

Lots of rambling. Gonna rain again today so no riding.

[Suzi Q]

You might also check the crush washers under the cylinder head nuts as well. They are in the same area as the cover gasket. I have a leak front left as well, and it proved to be the aforementioned washer. After doing some research, it seems as if the front left is the first one to go, and serves as a pressurized pathway for oil transfer upwards. I confirmed my leak as the washer, but I ordered the cover gasket anyway as well as 8 new washers so that I will have the gasket on hand if it goes any time soon. Partzilla was the cheapest I could find...the gasket and 8 washers, shipped was $42.

[mr72]

Went for a ~50 mile ride today.

Good news: the seat is better. Still not perfect but I'm no longer sliding forward. There's a chance I can live with it like this for a while.

Bad news: it's still leaking oil like a sieve. It's clearly leaking from the right side crank seal. Dripping onto my shoe and the brake lever while I ride.

Potentially horrible news: Lots of oil smoke when I first started it up. I suppose there's a chance I overfilled it when I put it all back together. Once it was warmed up and running it seemed to stop smoking, or I couldn't see it. I'm going to have to keep an eye on that. I did just have a top end rebuild done, didn't I?

[Suzi Q]

Are you sure it's oil smoke and not just normal condensation burning off?

[mr72]

Are you sure it's oil smoke and not just normal condensation burning off?

Oh yeah, it was oil smoke. No doubt. But it didn't do it except for when it was first started cold. I haven't started it cold since then.

I think I probably overfilled it. When I did the bolt extraction job I put in 3.0 quarts of oil but didn't change/drain the filter and it was at the top of the dipstick markings. My guess is I am over a couple hundred mL. Probably burned it right off or leaked it by now, the way the thing is leaking. I'll double check the level before I ride it again.

[mr72]

Well, first the really good news. I think I may have overestimated my oil leak. I am still going to fix that one seal and replace the valve cover gasket (the parts are already on the truck). But it's hardly urgent. I went out this morning to clean off the oil so it wouldn't wind up on my foot again, and lo and behold, there was literally no wet oil at all on the bike near the spot where it was leaking before. Or anywhere! So that's good stuff right there. Could be oil pan or drain plug or something else leaking a little...? Or residual oil I didn't get fully cleaned off before.

Anyway, other great news, it rained all weekend so I built a luggage rack for my tail bag.

Here's a shot of the whole bike with the rack (BTW this shot also shows a pretty good view of my recovered seat):


Here's a more detailed pic:


And from the rear:


So..

I started with a cheap folding luggage cart like this:
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Luggage-Cart-Large/17253653

I actually had it laying around the garage. I found a section that was U-shaped and the right width, about 9" across the outside, and chopped that section out so I had a pre-bent U-shaped steel tube. Whole reason I used the luggage cart was for that tube.

The little "side struts" are from a bicycle rack. I could have made them from aluminum flat stock. They are affixed to the U-shaped part with pop rivets.

There's an aluminum flat bar across the front to line up with the grab bar, and it bolts on via this cross bar to the grab bar. Pop rivets again.

The really tricky part was where to attach the cantilever struts on the rear. I wound up using a pair of off the shelf "corner braces" like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Everbilt-1-1-2-in-Black-Corner-Brace-4-Pack-20287/204727565

That along with a handful of the right kind of washers mounted in the holes beneath the tail light on the little tail light frame/bracket is how I wound up with vertical mounting points to attach the side struts of the rack. I bolted all this on with #10 stainless screws and nylock nuts.

Next to mount the tail bag, I actually cut out a piece of ABS plastic I had to match the shape of the base of my tail bag, and then pop-riveted that to the top using conduit clamps like this:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Halex-1-2-in-Electrical-Metallic-Tube-EMT-1-Hole-Straps-25-Pack-26151/100172548

In my case, the tail bag has velcro strips near the edges on the bottom, so I used adhesive velcro to make up matching velcro. The Motocentric tail bag also had straps with buckles on them to mate up to their saddle bags, so I removed their buckles and put my own buckles on there to make up straps that would hold the bag on the rack... the velcro is just for positioning, basically.

Eventually I may want to put a top case on here instead of this bag, and that's why I didn't fully customize the rack to hold this bag. I can always drill those rivets and pop the platform off and then replace it with whatever I need to mount whatever I want to mount in the future.

The rack is strong enough to hold the tail bag with my laptop or a small amount of groceries in it, the random stuff I carry. I think if I am bringing home a 12-pack of Coke Zero like I do occasionally, I might use the cargo net and bungee it to the seat ahead of the rack. But I think a 6-pack of Devil's Backbone will work just fine in the rack. Let's say it has maybe a 10 lb limit. Weak spot are those corner braces. It's a non-ideal mounting solution but I could not come up with any other way after a whole weekend of head-scratching.

[qcbaker]

Well, first the really good news. I think I may have overestimated my oil leak. I am still going to fix that one seal and replace the valve cover gasket (the parts are already on the truck). But it's hardly urgent. I went out this morning to clean off the oil so it wouldn't wind up on my foot again, and lo and behold, there was literally no wet oil at all on the bike near the spot where it was leaking before. Or anywhere! So that's good stuff right there. Could be oil pan or drain plug or something else leaking a little...? Or residual oil I didn't get fully cleaned off before.

You've checked your oil level to make sure that the leak stopping doesn't just indicate that you've simply leaked out all your oil, right? Lol.

[mr72]

You've checked your oil level to make sure that the leak stopping doesn't just indicate that you've simply leaked out all your oil, right? Lol.

HA! Yeah.

And remember last time I ran the bike it smoked a ton on startup, which now I realize was that I had overfilled it. It didn't do that today, so we're good to go. It's full, mighty full at that.

[ShowBizWolf]

Lookin' great Josh!!!

[mr72]

Welp, the Amazon seller sent the wrong gasket for the valve cover. Guess I'll be putting off the oil-leak-ectomy until probably July.

In other news, I'm seriously considering hitting the ROT Rally next weekend, maybe bringing my dad along. Wonder if we'll get laughed out of the place on our Japanese motorcycles. Maybe it's because they are so obnoxious but historically the ROT Rally seems to be a giant meetup of Harley owners & mostly wannabe "biker" types.

[Suzi Q]

I got the gasket from Partzilla and it was very reasonable.